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2011 Linux Graphics Survey Results

10-29-2011, 10:10 AM

Phoronix: 2011 Linux Graphics Survey Results

In September the 2011 Linux Graphics Survey came to an end, but due to Oktoberfest, AMD Bulldozer Linux testing, OpenBenchmarking.org developments, and other matters, I didn't have time to look at the survey results until this weekend when getting ready for the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Here's the 2011 results looking at what Linux desktop end-users are running when it comes to graphics cards and drivers as well as their key concerns.

Just to make things clear that there's nothing "unfortunate" on still using a Matrox gpu. I use it on a basic storage server built from old parts (and a few new ones) where even the Millenium II G200 8MB in there is more than enough to display the command line interface. I mostly just interface with it remotely anyway... I suspect that the others running equally outdated hardware are on a similar situation and don't use these systems for doing much production work.

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KMS and Gallium3D not getting much interest isn't too surprising since both technologies are now widespread across the open-source drivers (except for the Intel driver still being on classic Mesa) and aren't directly user-facing.

They're not interesting because they're a means to an end. Who except a few technology freaks cares how that's achieved?

There's also a small chunk of people still living off the defunct xf86-video-radeonhd driver for whatever reason, which is surprising since the features now offered by xf86-video-ati certainly surpass this Novell-developed driver.

Surprising? It has "HD" in its name, it has to be good. Or maybe people don't know which driver they use, and assume because they have a Radeon HD they use the radeonhd driver.

The use of GPU compute technologies (OpenCL, CUDA, etc) still is not widespread on Linux. In part this is due to the open-source drivers lacking the compute support.

And in part because they're also a means to an end. Who says "hey, today I'm going to use MMX/SSE/my FPU"? For the mainstream enduser those things only have value once they're transparently integrated and people don't even know they use them.

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"Still" running a single display? Everyone not using at least two monitors is now behind the times, or what? Ever considered that we might not *need* more than one? I have another monitor packed away in the closet, but why the hell would I want to connect it as a second one?

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Interesting to see that most people are actually using compiz. But we never hear about them or compiz itself. It seems contrary to kde/kwin and gnome-* (where we have weekly articles and postings and updates and surveys and stuff) it just works?!